FIND

Search for a text string in a file & display all the lines where it is found.

syntax

FIND [/V] [/C] [/N] [/I] "string" [pathname(s)]

Key

/V : Display all lines NOT containing the specified string.

/C : Count the number of lines containing the string.

/N : Display Line numbers.

/I : Ignore the case of characters when searching for the string.

"string" : The text string to find (must be in quotes).

[pathname] : A drive, file or files to search.

If a [pathname] is not specified, FIND will prompt for text input or will accept text piped from another command.

(use CTRL-Z to end manual text input)

For example:

If names.txt contains the following:

Joe Bloggs, 123 Main St, Dunoon

Arnold Jones, 127 Scotland Street, Edinburgh

To search for "Jones" in names.txt

FIND "Jones" names.txt

Names.Txt:

Arnold Jones, 127 Scotland Street, Edinburgh

If you want to pipe a command into FIND use this syntax

TYPE names.txt | FIND "Jones"

You can also redirect like this

FIND /i "Jones" < names.txt >logfile.txt

To search a folder for files that contain a given search string

FOR %G IN (*.txt) do (find /n /i "SearchWord" "%G")

Bugs/Limitations

Although FIND can be used to scan large files, it will not detect any string that is positioned more than 1070 characters along a single line (with no carriage return) This makes it of limited use in searching binary or XML file types.